By Marina Knight
I just came down to Speeder and Earl's coffee shop to post an update after checking out the Burton protest rally.
It wasn't much of a protest, though it was peaceful. There were members of the media and about 100 protesters with signs with slogans like "Now I ride Rossignol" and "Is that what you want me to do?" - referring to the Primo boards which feature self cutting. About a third of the crowd was under the age of 10.
The group organized themselves, then marched along the road (Industrial Parkway) in front of Burton's flagship store and offices in Burlington. A few police officers stood watch.
The crowd stopped just in front, but didn't enter the parking lot and some Burton employees headed to lunch filed out of the building to their cars. They looked at the crowd nonchalantly, then went on their way. A small crowd stood outside on a balcony of the Burton building and some of Burton's "media" team shot video and stills of the protest, which they will likely use to fuel the fire.
The protesters called for Jake himself to come out and explain himself, but he did not come out because, I later learned, Jake is in New Zealand.
After a short while the crowd of people made their way back to their cars.
I headed inside the Burton store to see what the word among employees was. A group sat eating lunch in the lobby. The store was crowded with shoppers and one employee said it was busier than normal, probably due to the rally. Another lamented that people are putting so much energy into protesting naked girls on boards, when there are far worse things happening in the world. Like the Iraq war, he said.
The whole experience has cast into light the power of the media and the power of the individual to rally a crowd. In Burton's most recent statement to the press, Burton's CEO Laurent Potdevin, said he was forced to make the statement "as a result of the opinions of an isolated group of individuals."
Having covered the story for about three weeks, I would have to agree with him. The group leading the charge against Burton is relatively small and very persistent. Does that group represent a large cross-section of people? That is hard to know.
Given the amount of media attention given to the protesters (the story has been covered by CNN and several large newspapers) one would think the Burton controversy is a huge deal - and it certainly is to those who oppose the boards.
It also highlights the media's tendency to cover what lands in their lap. Really, at the effort of one person, through emails directed at various media outlets, a storm of controversy was created. The coverage has been slanted heavily toward those who are against the snowboards. We haven't heard much from Burton, from people who are unfeathered by their graphics or from anyone who has bought one of the Love or Primo Boards. Stay tuned on that front though.
Burton says they support freedom of artistic expression. Couch it like that and it's hard to find fault with them. I mean, who is for censorship?
It's a fascinatingly complex issue which is very difficult to take a stand on. I'm not for debasing women, but I'm for freedom of expression. I'm not sure that snowboards can be called art, but artists made the graphics. If the self-cutting images were on a canvas would that make it better? Where does that leave people? Political ideas, social values, freedom of expression, and a wide cross section of individual opinions are intersecting here.
There's no black or white here, just a big sea of grey.
10/23/08
10/16/08
Right to know contrasted
BY TOM KEARNEY
So, here’s the deal: The city attorney, a man, oversees a consultant, a woman, who’s been hired to help rewrite the zoning laws.
The lawyer approves her consultancy contract, signs her pay vouchers, and supervises her work. She makes a lot more money as a consultant than she would as a city employee. The project doesn’t go well; it’s past deadline and over budget. The lawyer and the consultant develop a close personal relationship.
At the same time, the city’s interim administrator — she works with the committee that oversees the city attorney contract — also develops a close personal relationship with the lawyer.
The details of these relationships, and their built-in conflicts of interest, are all told in hundreds of e-mails the three people sent back and forth, using their city government e-mail accounts. The e-mails are stored on the city government’s servers.
All this happened in Burlington, Vt.
The Burlington Free Press wanted to know what was in those e-mails, and what they said about how the city government was functioning.
The city stonewalled. Some e-mails involved labor negotiations, it said; others fell under the lawyer-client privilege. Still others, the city said, were “purely personal,” and outside the scope of the newspaper’s request.
The newspaper sued. In a ruling dated Oct. 3, Judge Brian Grearson ruled in Washington Superior Court that the newspaper was right, but will get none of the e-mails.
The ruling hinges on a balance of competing interests, and Judge Grearson leans more heavily toward privacy than other courts have done.
The decision says all the things journalists want to hear about the people’s right to know. The judge rejects the city’s argument that purely personal e-mails are not public records; he acknowledges there is high public interest in conflicts of interest that would affect the functioning of government; he says the people have a right to know.
But, after reviewing all the e-mails himself, Judge Grearson ruled they will stay secret. “None of the sealed e-mails includes any information (other than the mere fact of the relationship) that a reasonable person would think is evidence of wrongdoing, or that connects the personal information to potential wrongdoing. … In these circumstances, there simply is no demonstrable basis for more probing public scrutiny of these individuals’ personal communications.”
The court described the ruling as a split decision: The Press’ public records request is granted in part and denied in part.” That is, the newspaper wins on principle, but loses on the details.
Different in N.H.
I contrast this ruling with a New Hampshire case in which I was involved while executive editor of The Keene Sentinel.
In 1990, a Republican congressman was running for re-election in a district that hadn’t elected a Democrat since 1912. He was running on a family values platform. Meanwhile, he was in the middle of his third divorce.
I wanted to know if the divorce files said anything about his family values, and sent a reporter to the courthouse to find out. However, both case files had been largely sealed from public view. In one, we got a few facts, such as the date, the judge, the names of the parties. In the other, all we got was a docket number scrawled on a yellow Post-It note.
We sued, contending these files were court cases, and court cases must be open for public inspection unless there’s strong legal justification for sealing them.
We lost in the lower court, where the judge called me “a panty-sniffing ghoul” and accused the newspaper of being a sensationalist scandal-monger. But two years later, we won big in the N.H. Supreme Court, and “Petition of Keene Sentinel” remains the gold standard in New Hampshire for keeping court files open to the public. Before sealing a file, a judge must explain in detail why the seal is being applied, and apply it only to those parts of the case that qualify. Further, in the public portion of the file, the judge must explain the decision to seal in enough detail to allow a challenge.
The ruling is based on many of the principles Judge Grearson outlined in the Burlington case: The court is a public instititution, people have a right to see how the courts work, and the best way to do that is to see how the courts work in difficult circumstances.
But in New Hampshire, the court opened the files; in Vermont, the e-mails stay secret.
Gathering vs. publishing
The Free Press may appeal.
If it does, I hope it stresses the difference between gathering and publishing information. Most people have no idea how many dry holes a reporter can drill before striking a news story.
Every journalist has his or her snitches, birdies who sing in their ears about “great stories.” I used to have a snitch who was wrong nine times out of ten, but that tenth time was gold. As a result, I had to check out every tip he gave me, in case it was the good one. Nine times out of ten, I wrote nothing.
Same with the congressman’s divorces. We said that, if the divorce files said nothing that countered the congressman’s family values platform, we would publish nothing. After we won in the Supreme Court, we looked at the files. Nothing in them was newsworthy. We published nothing.
That’s what the Vermont decision overlooks: The difference between gathering and publishing information. First we find out what’s true, and then decide if it’s news. In the Vermont case, the court took on that job for itself — and that’s wrong.
Tom Kearney is managing editor of the Stowe (Vt.) Reporter and a board member of the New England First Amendment Coalition.
So, here’s the deal: The city attorney, a man, oversees a consultant, a woman, who’s been hired to help rewrite the zoning laws.
The lawyer approves her consultancy contract, signs her pay vouchers, and supervises her work. She makes a lot more money as a consultant than she would as a city employee. The project doesn’t go well; it’s past deadline and over budget. The lawyer and the consultant develop a close personal relationship.
At the same time, the city’s interim administrator — she works with the committee that oversees the city attorney contract — also develops a close personal relationship with the lawyer.
The details of these relationships, and their built-in conflicts of interest, are all told in hundreds of e-mails the three people sent back and forth, using their city government e-mail accounts. The e-mails are stored on the city government’s servers.
All this happened in Burlington, Vt.
The Burlington Free Press wanted to know what was in those e-mails, and what they said about how the city government was functioning.
The city stonewalled. Some e-mails involved labor negotiations, it said; others fell under the lawyer-client privilege. Still others, the city said, were “purely personal,” and outside the scope of the newspaper’s request.
The newspaper sued. In a ruling dated Oct. 3, Judge Brian Grearson ruled in Washington Superior Court that the newspaper was right, but will get none of the e-mails.
The ruling hinges on a balance of competing interests, and Judge Grearson leans more heavily toward privacy than other courts have done.
The decision says all the things journalists want to hear about the people’s right to know. The judge rejects the city’s argument that purely personal e-mails are not public records; he acknowledges there is high public interest in conflicts of interest that would affect the functioning of government; he says the people have a right to know.
But, after reviewing all the e-mails himself, Judge Grearson ruled they will stay secret. “None of the sealed e-mails includes any information (other than the mere fact of the relationship) that a reasonable person would think is evidence of wrongdoing, or that connects the personal information to potential wrongdoing. … In these circumstances, there simply is no demonstrable basis for more probing public scrutiny of these individuals’ personal communications.”
The court described the ruling as a split decision: The Press’ public records request is granted in part and denied in part.” That is, the newspaper wins on principle, but loses on the details.
Different in N.H.
I contrast this ruling with a New Hampshire case in which I was involved while executive editor of The Keene Sentinel.
In 1990, a Republican congressman was running for re-election in a district that hadn’t elected a Democrat since 1912. He was running on a family values platform. Meanwhile, he was in the middle of his third divorce.
I wanted to know if the divorce files said anything about his family values, and sent a reporter to the courthouse to find out. However, both case files had been largely sealed from public view. In one, we got a few facts, such as the date, the judge, the names of the parties. In the other, all we got was a docket number scrawled on a yellow Post-It note.
We sued, contending these files were court cases, and court cases must be open for public inspection unless there’s strong legal justification for sealing them.
We lost in the lower court, where the judge called me “a panty-sniffing ghoul” and accused the newspaper of being a sensationalist scandal-monger. But two years later, we won big in the N.H. Supreme Court, and “Petition of Keene Sentinel” remains the gold standard in New Hampshire for keeping court files open to the public. Before sealing a file, a judge must explain in detail why the seal is being applied, and apply it only to those parts of the case that qualify. Further, in the public portion of the file, the judge must explain the decision to seal in enough detail to allow a challenge.
The ruling is based on many of the principles Judge Grearson outlined in the Burlington case: The court is a public instititution, people have a right to see how the courts work, and the best way to do that is to see how the courts work in difficult circumstances.
But in New Hampshire, the court opened the files; in Vermont, the e-mails stay secret.
Gathering vs. publishing
The Free Press may appeal.
If it does, I hope it stresses the difference between gathering and publishing information. Most people have no idea how many dry holes a reporter can drill before striking a news story.
Every journalist has his or her snitches, birdies who sing in their ears about “great stories.” I used to have a snitch who was wrong nine times out of ten, but that tenth time was gold. As a result, I had to check out every tip he gave me, in case it was the good one. Nine times out of ten, I wrote nothing.
Same with the congressman’s divorces. We said that, if the divorce files said nothing that countered the congressman’s family values platform, we would publish nothing. After we won in the Supreme Court, we looked at the files. Nothing in them was newsworthy. We published nothing.
That’s what the Vermont decision overlooks: The difference between gathering and publishing information. First we find out what’s true, and then decide if it’s news. In the Vermont case, the court took on that job for itself — and that’s wrong.
Tom Kearney is managing editor of the Stowe (Vt.) Reporter and a board member of the New England First Amendment Coalition.
9/8/08
A mother questions Palin's choice
By Maria Archangelo
At the start of this column, I feel the need to put all of my cards on the table. I am a working mother (and have been working mostly full time since my children were born). I am the daughter of a mother who worked from the time I was 3 years old. I was raised Roman Catholic in an Irish-German neighborhood in Philadelphia. I have many family members who became pregnant as teens. Most kept their babies; most got married.
In all of the situations, there was despair, difficulties and, most of the time, divorce. Some wonderful children were born, and we felt lucky to have them in our family.
So, for these reasons, or maybe in spite of them, I have become a little obsessed about Sarah Palin and the revelation this week that she decided to run for vice president of the United States on the heels of the news that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.
The whole Sarah Palin thing is a little bit of a struggle for me. It isn’t that I would ever vote for her (I couldn’t be more opposed to most of her political views), but I find myself strangely preoccupied with her decision to run for the nation’s second-highest office at this point in her life.
Forget that she has a small baby at home. I juggled a full-time job while nursing my son for 18 months. I doubt I would have taken a really big promotion to a really demanding position at that time in my life, but who knows? No one has ever asked me to be vice president.
The bigger issue for me is that she has chosen to put herself in the international spotlight in the midst of a family tragedy.
For the pregnancy of a 17-year-old high school student is nothing less than a family tragedy in my eyes.
I have a 15-year-old daughter. I have no illusions that my home is immune to this scenario (although I am doing everything in my power to make sure it doesn’t happen).
But if it did happen, I would like to think that my daughter and our family would become my No. 1 priority. There would be anger and disappointment, but there would also have to be a coming together. Private decisions with lifelong implications would be made. Creating an environment of support and love would be paramount.
I find it incomprehensible that I would willingly put my daughter in a situation where I would be inviting strangers to read her boyfriend’s MySpace profile and scrutinizing every picture of her to see evidence of a pregnancy bump.
Let’s be clear here. If Bristol Palin came to her mother the day after she was nominated at the Republican National Convention and revealed that she was pregnant, I would not be writing this column.
The fact is, her mother knew about the pregnancy before she said yes to John McCain. Sarah Palin made the choice to put her daughter’s personal tragedy before the world and to hold her up to ridicule and shame.
To me, that reveals something very dark about Ms. Palin. And it makes me want to give her 17-year-old daughter a big, reassuring hug.
Maria Archangelo is editor and publisher of the Waterbury Record.
At the start of this column, I feel the need to put all of my cards on the table. I am a working mother (and have been working mostly full time since my children were born). I am the daughter of a mother who worked from the time I was 3 years old. I was raised Roman Catholic in an Irish-German neighborhood in Philadelphia. I have many family members who became pregnant as teens. Most kept their babies; most got married.
In all of the situations, there was despair, difficulties and, most of the time, divorce. Some wonderful children were born, and we felt lucky to have them in our family.
So, for these reasons, or maybe in spite of them, I have become a little obsessed about Sarah Palin and the revelation this week that she decided to run for vice president of the United States on the heels of the news that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.
The whole Sarah Palin thing is a little bit of a struggle for me. It isn’t that I would ever vote for her (I couldn’t be more opposed to most of her political views), but I find myself strangely preoccupied with her decision to run for the nation’s second-highest office at this point in her life.
Forget that she has a small baby at home. I juggled a full-time job while nursing my son for 18 months. I doubt I would have taken a really big promotion to a really demanding position at that time in my life, but who knows? No one has ever asked me to be vice president.
The bigger issue for me is that she has chosen to put herself in the international spotlight in the midst of a family tragedy.
For the pregnancy of a 17-year-old high school student is nothing less than a family tragedy in my eyes.
I have a 15-year-old daughter. I have no illusions that my home is immune to this scenario (although I am doing everything in my power to make sure it doesn’t happen).
But if it did happen, I would like to think that my daughter and our family would become my No. 1 priority. There would be anger and disappointment, but there would also have to be a coming together. Private decisions with lifelong implications would be made. Creating an environment of support and love would be paramount.
I find it incomprehensible that I would willingly put my daughter in a situation where I would be inviting strangers to read her boyfriend’s MySpace profile and scrutinizing every picture of her to see evidence of a pregnancy bump.
Let’s be clear here. If Bristol Palin came to her mother the day after she was nominated at the Republican National Convention and revealed that she was pregnant, I would not be writing this column.
The fact is, her mother knew about the pregnancy before she said yes to John McCain. Sarah Palin made the choice to put her daughter’s personal tragedy before the world and to hold her up to ridicule and shame.
To me, that reveals something very dark about Ms. Palin. And it makes me want to give her 17-year-old daughter a big, reassuring hug.
Maria Archangelo is editor and publisher of the Waterbury Record.
8/20/08
Olympic resources
Sorry, folks, but I can’t help but write about the Olympics.
Mostly, I want to point to various Web resources that will enhance your Olympic experience, since NBC is once again serving up the spliced, manufactured mess it always does.
Try switching the channel to CBC (channel 6, if you have Stowe Cable) to see different sports covered in a thorough fashion.
Also, if you’re upset about what is being covered, the NBC Web site is streaming hours of coverage online and on demand. The other day, I watched men’s weightlifting in its glorious entirety. If you have a Mac, all you need to do is download and install a simple plug-in.
The best place to view results is the official site, as it’s updated most promptly.
The New York Times has done an excellent job covering the Olympics, too. Stories like this one about two elderly Chinese women being sentenced to a year of "re-education" through labor after protesting that they received inadequate compensation for demolition of their homes prior to the Games characterize the good coverage. Check out their blog, Rings, too.
- Marina Knight
Mostly, I want to point to various Web resources that will enhance your Olympic experience, since NBC is once again serving up the spliced, manufactured mess it always does.
Try switching the channel to CBC (channel 6, if you have Stowe Cable) to see different sports covered in a thorough fashion.
Also, if you’re upset about what is being covered, the NBC Web site is streaming hours of coverage online and on demand. The other day, I watched men’s weightlifting in its glorious entirety. If you have a Mac, all you need to do is download and install a simple plug-in.
The best place to view results is the official site, as it’s updated most promptly.
The New York Times has done an excellent job covering the Olympics, too. Stories like this one about two elderly Chinese women being sentenced to a year of "re-education" through labor after protesting that they received inadequate compensation for demolition of their homes prior to the Games characterize the good coverage. Check out their blog, Rings, too.
- Marina Knight
7/26/08
I am a nomad, of sorts
By Marina Knight
There is a fragile-looking girl sitting in front of me putting on make-up. She’s wearing a hot pink shirt and she has bleach-blonde hair and for the life of me I can’t figure out why this is necessary behavior in a café.
A loud family of four with visiting in-laws just vacated the table next to me. Their sandwich remnants still linger on the table and people around them glance down as if they’re going to jump off the table and into their latte.
Bob Marley, then some offbeat indie-pop song blares though the speakers and it’s raining hard outside.
This is the scene at Darwin’s café in Cambridge, Mass.
For the past four days, it’s been my office. Sometimes, I snag a seat on the large, yet horribly unsupportive, couch and sometimes I slide into a chair at one of the communal tables. Today, my timing was just right and I am sitting at a small table all my own. This little piece of real estate is a serious score and I have staked out my belongings, iPod, cell phone, small black notebook, pen and iced tea to let people know that I will be here for the afternoon.
The place has its downfalls, grungy bathroom, semi-weak coffee, just a tad-too-loud music, but it has free wi-fi, air conditioning and I think most other people in here are working, too.
This week I have been web commuting. At first I thought I was telecommuting, but it turns out I am not. That term is not only outmoded, I learned, it is too vague. Plus, telecommuting was what people did when the phone was the main means of communication. Now we use the web. It was important to make this distinction at the beginning of the week, and to mete out the varied nuances of working from away early.
The work I have done this week can also be classified as “nomad working.” It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, especially in a new town. I’ve gone through a fair number of possible work places and only a few allow me to get work done.
On day one, I walked down to the Cambridge public library only to discover that it’s closed for total renovation. I was sent to a high school gym, where I sat for a few hours. It was hot out and there was no AC and the kids reading circle was a bit out of control, so that locale was canned.
I tried working at Pete’s Coffee, the coffee being the obvious bonus, it had AC and wi-fi but there was way too much turnover, giving the place a restless feel. I found it hard to concentrate. On reflection it may have been the triple shot of espresso that caused my jittery feeling.
Darwin’s is just right, even when it’s a bit crowded. There is a different vibe to feed off than the normal office vibe. Some people are writing in journals, others are totally tuned out and focused on what looks like heavy research and an older man just behind me is editing photos. One of the coffee baristas just played Dee Jay, dedicating a song to us. Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean was our gift.
If the experience has taught me anything (the ability to block out crying children, working in a semi-chaotic environment and methods of caffeine regulation aside) it is that work is something you do, not something you travel to.
There is a fragile-looking girl sitting in front of me putting on make-up. She’s wearing a hot pink shirt and she has bleach-blonde hair and for the life of me I can’t figure out why this is necessary behavior in a café.
A loud family of four with visiting in-laws just vacated the table next to me. Their sandwich remnants still linger on the table and people around them glance down as if they’re going to jump off the table and into their latte.
Bob Marley, then some offbeat indie-pop song blares though the speakers and it’s raining hard outside.
This is the scene at Darwin’s café in Cambridge, Mass.
For the past four days, it’s been my office. Sometimes, I snag a seat on the large, yet horribly unsupportive, couch and sometimes I slide into a chair at one of the communal tables. Today, my timing was just right and I am sitting at a small table all my own. This little piece of real estate is a serious score and I have staked out my belongings, iPod, cell phone, small black notebook, pen and iced tea to let people know that I will be here for the afternoon.
The place has its downfalls, grungy bathroom, semi-weak coffee, just a tad-too-loud music, but it has free wi-fi, air conditioning and I think most other people in here are working, too.
This week I have been web commuting. At first I thought I was telecommuting, but it turns out I am not. That term is not only outmoded, I learned, it is too vague. Plus, telecommuting was what people did when the phone was the main means of communication. Now we use the web. It was important to make this distinction at the beginning of the week, and to mete out the varied nuances of working from away early.
The work I have done this week can also be classified as “nomad working.” It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, especially in a new town. I’ve gone through a fair number of possible work places and only a few allow me to get work done.
On day one, I walked down to the Cambridge public library only to discover that it’s closed for total renovation. I was sent to a high school gym, where I sat for a few hours. It was hot out and there was no AC and the kids reading circle was a bit out of control, so that locale was canned.
I tried working at Pete’s Coffee, the coffee being the obvious bonus, it had AC and wi-fi but there was way too much turnover, giving the place a restless feel. I found it hard to concentrate. On reflection it may have been the triple shot of espresso that caused my jittery feeling.
Darwin’s is just right, even when it’s a bit crowded. There is a different vibe to feed off than the normal office vibe. Some people are writing in journals, others are totally tuned out and focused on what looks like heavy research and an older man just behind me is editing photos. One of the coffee baristas just played Dee Jay, dedicating a song to us. Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean was our gift.
If the experience has taught me anything (the ability to block out crying children, working in a semi-chaotic environment and methods of caffeine regulation aside) it is that work is something you do, not something you travel to.
7/17/08
Vacation season
BY TOM KEARNEY
This is the best of times; this is the worst of times.
It’s vacation season.
People come, people go; people are a little preoccupied at work because they’re thinking about sipping a pina colada on the beach.
Everybody does everyone else’s job while they’re gone, only not as well; a former reporter winds up baby-sitting the computer servers; novices shoot news photos and we all hope for the best.
At a small operation like ours, where every job is vital, vacations have to be finessed. Optimally, people would work all the time. But in reality, without vacations, the people on our staff would burn out like dollar-store candles.
With them, those folks come back energized, full of energy and ideas — which they pitch to the poor souls who’ve been filling in and are worn out and dreaming of their own vacation time.
As for my own time off, I separate things into vacations and family trips.
Vacations are when you kick back, relax, sip tall, cool drinks, maybe smoke a cigar, and dip your toes into cool water while you read a trashy novel.
Family trips are when you’re loaded up like a pack horse, carrying a backpack jammed with sunscreen, water, raincoats, hats, insect repellent, bug-bite antidote, and whatever else fits in there.
You lug this burden behind cavorting children at, say, an amusement park where all the rides give you vertigo, or retail stores where the beaded shirts and distressed minskirts have no place in your closet, or on a beach road where your load expands to include a blanket, towels and beach chairs.
Don’t get me wrong; I love family trips. Family trips bring anticipation during the drive, knowing you’ll wind up someplace exciting. Family trips mean great conversations, songs and laughter. Family trips bring the satisfaction that you’re showing the youngsters things they’d never experience otherwise.
Family trips are the best.
Just don’t call them vacations.
This is the best of times; this is the worst of times.
It’s vacation season.
People come, people go; people are a little preoccupied at work because they’re thinking about sipping a pina colada on the beach.
Everybody does everyone else’s job while they’re gone, only not as well; a former reporter winds up baby-sitting the computer servers; novices shoot news photos and we all hope for the best.
At a small operation like ours, where every job is vital, vacations have to be finessed. Optimally, people would work all the time. But in reality, without vacations, the people on our staff would burn out like dollar-store candles.
With them, those folks come back energized, full of energy and ideas — which they pitch to the poor souls who’ve been filling in and are worn out and dreaming of their own vacation time.
As for my own time off, I separate things into vacations and family trips.
Vacations are when you kick back, relax, sip tall, cool drinks, maybe smoke a cigar, and dip your toes into cool water while you read a trashy novel.
Family trips are when you’re loaded up like a pack horse, carrying a backpack jammed with sunscreen, water, raincoats, hats, insect repellent, bug-bite antidote, and whatever else fits in there.
You lug this burden behind cavorting children at, say, an amusement park where all the rides give you vertigo, or retail stores where the beaded shirts and distressed minskirts have no place in your closet, or on a beach road where your load expands to include a blanket, towels and beach chairs.
Don’t get me wrong; I love family trips. Family trips bring anticipation during the drive, knowing you’ll wind up someplace exciting. Family trips mean great conversations, songs and laughter. Family trips bring the satisfaction that you’re showing the youngsters things they’d never experience otherwise.
Family trips are the best.
Just don’t call them vacations.
7/4/08
On Independence
By Jesse Roman
Be assured, the following is not an ode to the merits of patriotism. There are already too many of those in America. What is rarely considered, what seems to me an obvious omission, is the question of what patriotism actually means.
Is it synonymous with the kind of rah-rah nationalism that Daniel Webster captured in his 1850 speech when he declared to a frenzied crowd, ”I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American!”
Is patriotism blind faith in your country, its people, its leaders and its principles, warts and all the “conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it,” as playwright George Bernard Shaw once said.
My country, right or wrong is the pseudo-tribalistic mindset that's often used as the litmus test for ‘true’ Americans.
Personally, I have always had a hard time following that type of blind faith. My thoughts on the subject lie somewhere between those of authors Mark Twain, who said that “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it,” and author Sinclair Lewis, who believed, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
Patriotism cannot just be a love for your country. With that must come a willingness to question it at every turn to ensure that the people who govern it stay true to the guiding principles by which it was founded. Among those principles, as we all know, are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
I recently watched footage of a news broadcast that showed what can happen when so-called “patriotism” is taken to the extreme.
Taking offense to a Mexican flag, which had erroneously been hung a notch above the American flag on a pole in Reno, Nev., a man yanked down both flags in front of the owner, took the U.S. flag in his arms and tossed the Mexican flag on the ground. Then he said to the TV cameras:
“I took this flag down in honor of my country, with a knife of the United States Army! I am a veteran and I will not see this done to my country. If they want to fight us, then they need to be men. But I want someone to fight me for this flag, because they're not going to get it back!”
Some may look at this as a brazen act of valor. Others will cringe.
People can debate which reaction is right or wrong, but at least we have the freedom to engage in the debate. That¹s what makes ours the freest country in the world.
But to keep it that way we all need remain tolerant of other views, we must learn to compromise and we must stay vigilant of the fact that as Americans we are free to believe what we wish. If patriotism is used as a bludgeon to attack the moral fiber of free citizens and intimidate them into censoring their thoughts, then are we really free?
Be assured, the following is not an ode to the merits of patriotism. There are already too many of those in America. What is rarely considered, what seems to me an obvious omission, is the question of what patriotism actually means.
Is it synonymous with the kind of rah-rah nationalism that Daniel Webster captured in his 1850 speech when he declared to a frenzied crowd, ”I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American!”
Is patriotism blind faith in your country, its people, its leaders and its principles, warts and all the “conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it,” as playwright George Bernard Shaw once said.
My country, right or wrong is the pseudo-tribalistic mindset that's often used as the litmus test for ‘true’ Americans.
Personally, I have always had a hard time following that type of blind faith. My thoughts on the subject lie somewhere between those of authors Mark Twain, who said that “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it,” and author Sinclair Lewis, who believed, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
Patriotism cannot just be a love for your country. With that must come a willingness to question it at every turn to ensure that the people who govern it stay true to the guiding principles by which it was founded. Among those principles, as we all know, are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
I recently watched footage of a news broadcast that showed what can happen when so-called “patriotism” is taken to the extreme.
Taking offense to a Mexican flag, which had erroneously been hung a notch above the American flag on a pole in Reno, Nev., a man yanked down both flags in front of the owner, took the U.S. flag in his arms and tossed the Mexican flag on the ground. Then he said to the TV cameras:
“I took this flag down in honor of my country, with a knife of the United States Army! I am a veteran and I will not see this done to my country. If they want to fight us, then they need to be men. But I want someone to fight me for this flag, because they're not going to get it back!”
Some may look at this as a brazen act of valor. Others will cringe.
People can debate which reaction is right or wrong, but at least we have the freedom to engage in the debate. That¹s what makes ours the freest country in the world.
But to keep it that way we all need remain tolerant of other views, we must learn to compromise and we must stay vigilant of the fact that as Americans we are free to believe what we wish. If patriotism is used as a bludgeon to attack the moral fiber of free citizens and intimidate them into censoring their thoughts, then are we really free?
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